Comments on: Ryan plan would boost U.S. economic securityhttp://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2011/04/07/ryan-plan-would-boost-u-s-economic-security/
Politics and policy from inside WashingtonTue, 14 Oct 2014 12:57:43 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.3By: GetpIaninghttp://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2011/04/07/ryan-plan-would-boost-u-s-economic-security/comment-page-1/#comment-11214
Fri, 08 Apr 2011 16:40:00 +0000http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/?p=6182#comment-11214There is nothing in Ryan’s “Path To Penury” that has not been circulated in policy circles for decades. Almost everything in the plan has been tried and has failed. The plan ignores obvious economic realities, such as the bubble-induced recession that has left 25 million people unemployed or underemployed. It gives all the benfits the rich and powerful, while destroying the limited economic security enjoyed by tens of millions of middle class families.

He wants to lower the top tax rate from the 39.6 percent in current law to 25 percent. This will means billions of dollars a year in additional spending money for Wall Street bankers, CEOs of major corporations and other major campaign contributors.

At the same time, he wants to abolish Medicare and replace it with a voucher program that will rapidly fall behind the rising costs of health insurance and health services. Medical bankruptcies will skyrocket.

Oh, and he does propose cutting the $7.8 trillion in defense spending projected for the next decade by 1 percent. Apparently Paul Ryan believes in a strong safety hammock for the defense industry.

I’ll say this. The fawning coverage of America’s corporate media of it’s new rising star does jump-start
the debate over how to rebalance the government budget. But this plan falls apart under the most basic analysis.

The Heritage Foundation, who helped Ryan craft the Path To Penury, scrubbed its website as soon as real budget analysts started pointing out the impossible numbers in the projections. It’s not economic policy. It’s economic ideology. Which is why we will see daily articles by Mr Pethokoukis telling us how great it is.